PUBLIC INTEREST in the search for Noah's ark continues to swell in spite of the fact that a number of expeditions to the traditional Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey have been unsuccessful in locating it. Symptomatic of such interest is the number of books on the subject rolling off the presses. Examples of such works published recently are Noah's Ark, Fact or Fable? by Violet Cummings (San Diego: Creation Research Society, 1972); The Quest for Noah's Ark, by John Warwick Montgomery (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1972); The Ark File, by Rene Noorbergen (Mountain View: Pacific Press, 1974); and Fernand Navarra's book translated from the French and published under the title Noah's Ark: I Touched It (Plainfield, N.J.: Logos International, 1974).
Considering the amount of time, energy, and expenditures that have been invested in the pursuit of this project and the publication of these pursuits, it behooves the Christian interested in this matter to obtain the most reliable information on it avail able. The Bible itself is rather brief on the point of where the ark landed. It simply says, "The ark came to rest upon the mountains of Ararat" (Gen. 8:4, R.S.V.). Both laymen and scholars alike have noted that the word "mountains" in this phrase is in the plural. Thus even though the toponym Ararat is given, the location is not precise.
A series of the most ancient epics known in the earliest language written by man, Sumerian, appear to refer to the same region. This cycle of texts is known as Enmerkar and the Lord of Aratta and they refer to relations between the king of Uruk (Biblical Erech) in the southern Mesopotamian plain and the ruler of Aratta whose residence lay over the mountains to the north. These early texts add little more information, however, that would help in locating that region more precisely.
At this point, then, the Adventist Christian is naturally interested in any statements Ellen G. White may have made concerning the location of the ark after the Flood. Even a cursory perusal of her comments on this subject is sufficient, however, to reveal that she never voiced her opinion on where the ark landed in any more precise geographical terms than those found in the Bible. In spite of this specific silence, there is a statement in her writings that bears some relation to the current quest for Noah's ark.
"The waters had been fifteen cubits above the highest mountains. The Lord remembered Noah, and as the waters decreased, he caused the ark to rest upon the top of a cluster of mountains, which God in his power had preserved and made them to stand fast all through that violent storm. These mountains were but a little distance apart, and the ark moved about and rested upon one, then another of these mountains, and was no more driven upon the boundless ocean. This gave great relief to Noah and all within the ark. As the mountains and hills appeared they were in a broken, rough condition, and all around them appeared like a sea of roiled water or soft mud." --Spiritual Gifts, vol. 3, p. 77.
The mountains referred to here are described as a "cluster" and they are said to have been "but a little distance apart." They were sufficiently close together that they formed a haven for the storm-tossed ship and they were even close enough together that the ship touched first one and then another of the cluster.
From this description the question arises, How well does the traditional Mount Ararat (AgriDagh), the focus of current expeditions in search of the ark, fit these requirements? One feature of Mount Ararat that stands out in photographs is that it is a very solitary peak. Though there are other high mountains in the vicinity of Mount Ararat, including "little" Ararat, none of them is close enough to Agri Dagh that the ark would have floated back and forth between them, nor do they form a cluster that could have provided the haven for the ark as described above. It is also difficult to locate this "cluster" among the peaks at the top of Mount Ararat itself.
The site on the mountain that has attracted the most attention in the search for the ark is an ice pack that rests on a cross-rock barrier on the north end of the mountain at 14,000 feet of elevation. As for the rest of the mountain, a geologist who has worked on it wrote me, "If it [the ark] went down the mountain in any other direction the steepness of the mountain would have rolled it to its destruction ages ago." Given these features of the traditional Mount Ararat, it does not seem to be a very likely landing place for the ark if we try to harmonize it with the comment of Ellen White quoted above.
The second point of interest from this quotation relates not so much to the location or configuration of the landing site as it does to the basic make-up of the mountain. Of this cluster of mountains she writes, "God in his power had preserved and made them to stand fast all through that violent storm." The logical conclusion from this statement is that the mountains in question were antediluvian in origin. It might be interesting in this connection to speculate on the general question of mountain building and about the heights to which antediluvian mountains may or may not have reached. Our specific concern here, however, is with the make-up of the traditional Mount Ararat.
Agri Dagh clearly is volcanic in origin and even though its volcano is no longer active, it still lies in a region known for earthquake activity. The geologist referred to above wrote that the lava flows from Mount Ararat extend out from the mountain for a radius of about twenty miles. If such volcanic activity was intradiluvian or postdiluvian, as creationist scientists commonly hold, then it is difficult to connect this volcanic Mount Ararat with the antediluvian mountains implied in Ellen White's statement. One could argue, I suppose, that an antediluvian shield lies under neath the volcanic cap and cover of Agri Dagh, but in that case the ark could hardly have escaped incineration by the flows of lava that must have engulfed it if it landed there. As a volcanic mountain, therefore, Agri Dagh falls short of Ellen White's requirement for an antediluvian mountain as the landing site of the ark.
Our results from this brief investigation are negative. The traditional Mount Ararat, Agri Dagh, fails to satisfy the requirements of Ellen White's statement on the subject on the two counts, both on the basis of its topography, and its origin and character. If the search for the ark is pursued further, it would seem wise for those involved in such a pursuit to examine other areas in addition to Agri Dagh.
